Automotive photographer Daniel Minárik: The Ferrari F40 gives me chills

Today, you can see many four-wheeled icons on Slovak streets. You don't have to look far to see at least one Porsche in a day, and if you're lucky, you'll even come across a Ferrari at the right time and in the right place. However, there are also cars that the vast majority of us, unfortunately, only glimpse in the depths of our dreams. The "crème de la crème" of the automotive industry, such as the Pagani Zonda or Lancia Stratos, mostly sleep quietly under thin blankets behind thick garage walls in private collections and come to light more sporadically than a solar eclipse. We are all the more excited when, thanks to Instagram or Youtube, we can at least virtually touch these legends. And the perfect photos or videos that bring icons like the Ferrari F40 home to us are often created closer than you would expect. Here is the story of a Slovak man who has seen almost everything in front of his lens. Despite being just over twenty, Daniel Minárik flies all over the world for his job. He comes to our quick meeting straight from the airport, where he landed a few minutes ago after returning from Bologna. What was he doing in Bologna? He was taking photos for Maserati... A normal day in his life.

If we haven't convinced you in the first few lines, just wander over to his Instagram profile for a few seconds (and don't miss the highlighted stories, where there's even more content than in the feed) to find out that he's a world-class caliber. This is proven not only by his perfect work with photography, but also by the cars he shoots and photographs. Ferrari 250 GTOs, of which there are less than forty in the world, Mercedes CLK GTRs (there are exactly thirty of them) or Porsche 911 GT1s (twenty-two), they're all there. Not parked in a museum, but on Alpine passes or lakeside valleys. In their natural environment. "For me, cars were TOP from a young age, if something red passed by me, I immediately "twitched my neck" and I started taking photos at the age of thirteen. I took pictures of various things: landscapes, celebrations, and then in my "freshman year" at university I happened to meet a guy who was an automotive photographer. I started going on photo shoots with him, helping him until I got into the local community in Slovakia."

However, I always had the ambition to go abroad, but it started quite by accident.

"My friend, whom I mentioned, was invited to Cars and Coffee in Brescia by a friend of mine, Peter. We went for a spin, there at night and back the same day. We were passing through Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Dolomites and realized that a legendary car collector lives in Cortina ( @powerslidelover ). Peter thought we should just write to him on Instagram that we would like to run out to see him. Although we thought that it was impossible for someone to write off a hundred thousand-dollar account, we sat down in Cortina for pizza anyway. Half an hour passed, an hour, and suddenly the answer came: "Sure, why not?" He gave us a list of cars, including a Ferrari F40, F50, Lamborghini Aventador SV, let us choose which one he should come with." "At first, you don't believe that someone would just come up to you in a similar car when they don't even know you. We knew that he didn't let many people near him. We made a quick video with him in the F40, we drove through the switchbacks to a lake, where I filmed him going sideways almost every turn. He shared my video, and it's been going on ever since." The friendship with the world-famous powerslide lover and Daniel continues to this day and traditionally he photographs and videos his super-exotic collection. His videos with the Ferrari F50 and LaFerrari Aperta are legendary, and recently they even photographed the second Ford GT in Italy together, which was delivered to him. The first one went to a certain Mr. Horacio Pagani. In addition to the aforementioned powerslidelover, Daniel also works with huge Instagram star Tom Claeren ( @tomclaeren ).

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Seeing this during the sunrise, well that was a magical moment! #ferrari #250gto #concorso #daybyme

A post shared by Daniel Minárik (@minarikd), July 5, 2018 at 11:24 AM PDT

"Tom is a huge inspiration to me because what he gives to every single production to make everything perfect is incredible. When you look at him on Instagram, you'll understand why he's an influencer to me in the truest sense of the word. But I also experience a lot of incredible things with him. The highlight was when we went under Mont Blanc together in the new Aston Martin Vantage, where we pushed the car on summer tires on a snowy road so much that I had to lean my feet against the barrier (laughs)." However, Switzerland and Italy are not the only destinations Daniel has traveled to with his camera. Doors are also opening for him outside our continent.

"Europe is definitely the bomb, Switzerland, Austria, those are my countries. But I would really like to go back to America. It's a big change from our lifestyle. I even had my greatest driving experience here, when I drove my very first Porsche on the coast, and it was a red 959 right away. The owners there are much more open. It's more of an exception for someone to let you drive their car here, but in America it was completely different. In our part of the world, owners are extremely wary of their treasures, while an American, on the contrary, will throw you the keys and go." Daniel's Instagram is full of photos of exotic cars, but which one does he prefer? "In the past, they were only modern, but the more I had the opportunity to get closer to the classics and drive them, the more I prefer the classics. I've been a die-hard "Ferrarista" since I was little, but since I started discovering Porsche, it's been a great experience for me. But the F40 is an absolute icon for me. It's an incredible experience to stand next to it and even drive it. Your heart races, you get chills, your hair stands on end. Then you look in the "reverse" mode, you see that wing with the F40 inscription... In short, indescribable."

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GROUP B. @drivecoffee #959 #Porsche #Porschemoment #daybyme

A post shared by Daniel Minárik (@minarikd), Mar 2, 2019 at 9:55 AM PST

But it's not all about lickin' honey and driving around in the most perfect cars on the planet. Constant travel, which could be tiring, is not something Daniel would deal with too much. And what are his plans for the future? "My friends laugh that there's not a day that goes by that I don't travel somewhere. Now it's ten flights in July alone, I'm away about every other week. But I don't think about what will happen, I deal with what is now, what will happen tomorrow. I don't know if I would still want to be running around with a camera at forty, but we'll see what life brings." Photo and video: Daniel Minárik